Sony Ericsson to offer unlimited music downloads dubbed PlayNow plus

Sony Ericsson finally respond to Nokia's Comes with music unlimited music download service and will be launching their own PlayNow plus service in Q4 2008.

To get part of the all-you-can-eat music fiesta you will need to be a customer of the Telenor carrier in Sweden - and if that ain't a deal breaker, we are not really sure what is. Of course, more countries and carriers will follow but no earlier than 2009.

The first device that will be PlayNow-plus-enabled is the Sony Ericsson W902 Walkman. As part of the deal, the handset will be preloaded with 1000 of the most popular recent music tracks. And if those are not enough, you can go online via your cell phone and browse and download unlimited amount of whatever music you like.

All the downloaded music can be played on your PC too. But best of all, in the end of the contract you get to keep the most played tracks in your playlist totally DRM-free, meaning you can listen to them on every music capable device out there.

Update: It seems like the PlayNow plus service is supplied by a company called Omniphone, which has been specializing in this sort of stuff. Currently, it has sealed deals with Universal Music Group, SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT, EMI Music, Warner Music Group and leading independents for providing music content for Sony Ericsson PlayNow plus. However we don't have any details on their DRM-free Keep Your Favorites (KYF) option so it's not clear how it would be determined which downloaded tracks you will get to keep DRM-free when the service expires.

Honestly, from where we stand, the whole deal seems too good to be true. We wonder how much the Sony Ericsson W902 PlayNow plus will cost with the premium service.

SE's download music service probably won't work here in the US since North America isn't really a market for SE phones except for 2-3 low end models!
Even so, why bother with SE's music service? No info available from SE probably means their mus...